From the Town of Nantucket
Coastal Resilience Plan, Virtual Open House #2
On Thursday, June 24, about 120 people attended Virtual Open House #2, a follow-up from the first event of the same name in January 2021. This second Virtual Open House focused on how the Coastal Resilience Plan is working towards solutions and what kinds of solutions might be acceptable to the community. After welcomes from Town Manager Libby Gibson and Coastal Resilience Advisory Committee Chair Mary Longacre, the Project Team outlined the plan to date and an island-wide risk assessment. The risk assessment showed that the single most vulnerable piece of infrastructure is Steamboat Wharf and that some 3,428 structures are at risk and some $1.2 billion in cumulative damages are expected between now and 2070 from coastal flooding erosion and sea-level rise. So with that in mind, the topic turned to resilience measures that can be used to reduce the Island’s exposure to this amount of risk.
Participants selected if they wanted to talk about one of 4 areas: Madaket, South Shore, Sconset or Nantucket Harbor. Every one of the four breakout groups talked about the Downtown area as well as their chosen area. Topics from artificial dunes on the south shore to raising roads in the downtown area and other types of infrastructure, mostly “green” infrastructure, were discussed. Though all groups had good participation, the most widely attended group was the Nantucket Harbor group as most people wanted to discuss the harbor and the downtown area together.
A sincere THANK YOU to all who attended. Public participation makes this process work.